- — December 21, 2009
Lucid Dreams. Jim Woodring, cartoonist
The Legend, 2005, 28 x 18 inches, oil on canvas
In the vernacular of the art world, a “visionary” has come to mean a “folk” or “outsider” artist. While this may well describe Jim Woodring, his work is also visionary in a literal sense. Woodring’s mystical motifs appear to him as lucid hallucinations, inspiring an intensely personal yet widely accessible iconography.
A visit with friends in rural Everson inspired his 1987 move to Seattle from Los Angeles, where he ran a merry-go-round and worked for an animation studio. He took with him the influence of legendary comic-book artists Jack Kirby and Gil Kane, whose Saturday morning cartoons he inked and colored (though they never aired). By day, he worked on godawful shows like Mister T; by night, he produced a brilliant self-published zine, Jim. Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth talked him into adding narrative text to his sublime images.
Woodring’s imagery and peculiar palette made him one of just a handful of cartoonists embraced by the insular fine-art milieu. He won a 2009 Artist Trust Fellowship and a 2006 United States Artists Fellowship (partnering with musician Bill Frisell) and has had solo shows in Japan, France and Australia.
I loved Woodring’s work at first sight and still do, nineteen years after I put his atypical mechanical sculptures in my Low Technology: Artist-Made Machines exhibition at CoCA. His visions are so clear, and so mysterious. — Larry Reid
Artist Stats:
Most recent book: Museum of Love and Mystery, a wordless book, except for the front-cover title, which is silk-screened in Sanskrit.
Esoteric inspiration: His popular
mute character Pupshaw is modeled on
a vintage radio from an Everson tavern.
Primary residence: Eerie turn-of-the-century Ravenna Victorian; residents are summoned with a bell pull and visitors half expect to be greeted by Lurch the butler intoning ”You rang?”
Next Show: Savants: A Survey of Seattle Alternative Cartoonists, opening August 8
at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
in Georgetown.
To see more: jimwoodring.com
